


Belov'd of Many

by privatesnarker



Series: Everybody [Spoiler] Verse [3]
Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Drug Withdrawal, Epilepsy, Fake Character Death, Fix-It, Medical Inaccuracies, Multi, OT3, OT5, Panic Attacks, Self-Medication, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-09
Updated: 2014-09-09
Packaged: 2018-02-16 18:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2281029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatesnarker/pseuds/privatesnarker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When the messenger tells him that the Friar wishes to see him, Tybalt’s first reaction is to try and recall whether losing your mind is a sin.</i>
</p>
<p>Everybody [SPOILER], the Tybalt Angst Remix >.></p>
            </blockquote>





	Belov'd of Many

**Author's Note:**

> Any mention of Peter is dedicated to [ Red_Mercutio ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Mercutio/pseuds/Red_Mercutio) :>

The pills have never been important, until there is not going to be any more. Maybe it should have occurred to him to worry about them sooner – after all, the supply shipments to Verona have been steadily decreasing in quality as well as quantity, as the relationship between Central Government and the least favoured member of its Interplanetary Trade Union cooled rapidly over the last months. The last time it was nothing but over-ripe fruit and some boxes of barely-expired medication, scraps the rich members throw to the starving dog begging at their table. But Tybalt has no head for politics, and he has not had to worry about medication for many years. _Routine_ , the doctor in Mantua had said, _strict hours for taking your pills, for sleeping, for eating and exercise. No disturbances._ Tybalt took it to heart, until he no longer needed to give it any conscious thought. Routine. Lately he has had other things to worry him, as the food shortage made the old rivalry between Capulets and Montagues flare up again, and Tybalt has to train his men for attack as well as defence now. Just in case. He counts the remaining pills, remembers how insistent the doctor had been on slowly upping his dosage, on never missing a day under any circumstances. He cuts the foil tablets into smaller squares, lays them out for each day. Slowly decreases the dosage. Tries not to think about what that means.

As the simmering feud turns into an open war, Central Government has the Prince close down Verona’s borders. The lack of further supply shipments cements it: there will be no more medication, and he would not be able to leave the planet to get some, even if Nurse’s gown wasn’t threadbare, Lady Capulet’s turned for the second time, Juliet’s dresses let at the hems. There have not been any hunting dogs in Verona since the days of Tybalt’s early childhood, but by now the cats have disappeared as well; and Tybalt has to fight not only Montagues, but their own people rioting for food. As the foil squares on his bedroom table keep dwindling, he clings stubbornly to the other parts of his routine, even though sleep is hard to come by these days. He knows what his father would have said: _A man does not worry, he acts._ And so Tybalt fights and trains and ignores how the sickly premonitions that used to haunt him once in a blue moon now come almost every day, and bring terrible headaches in their wake.

There are still the other pills, hoarded for emergencies and left untouched for many uneventful years. He tries reading the instructions, but his pounding headache and the dim light make the small letters swim and blur apart. Electricity has been gone for many years, but now fuel of any kind is being stocked for the coming winter that no one wants to think about, and Verona’s polluted sky will get no lighter than a dirty orange even at noon in the summer. Tybalt starts keeping the pills on him anyway, for whenever the premonitions get too strong. Mostly they help, sometimes he waits too long. He tries keeping count of the hours between each pill, the hours of sleep each night (less and less), the hours between each meal (more and more). He keeps losing time though, minutes or hours unaccounted for. Others he wishes he could forget, like the time he finds himself crying on Peter’s shoulder, horrified at himself but unable to stop the hoarse sobs strangling his every breath. To his credit, Peter never mentions it, but the shame still roils in Tybalt’s perpetually empty stomach. It all goes to hell when he hears about the plans to marry Juliet to one of Escalus’ nephews. Suddenly the room is too small, and when he makes it through the door there still isn’t enough air, and someone grabs his arms and shakes him before everything whites out. 

It’s the first time of many, and he tries hard to keep this newest disgrace to himself. Sooner or later he would have lost Juliet to another anyway, if it is even possible to lose something one has never had. This is the time for pragmatism, and if the Prince’s favour will keep them all from starving, then she is only doing her share in helping keep the family alive. If she is willing to give her all, shouldn’t Tybalt admire her for it, and strive to do the same? They will all make it through, and look back with pride on the hard times they mastered. And yet, whenever the sky seems barred with iron, and the walls of his room press the air out of him, he can no longer close his eyes to the truth: It will never be over, he can never leave, and they will all die here. But at least he will die fighting.

Tybalt may not be at his most alert these days, but there is no way he could miss the fact Mercutio has decided to grace Juliet and Paris’ engagement celebration with his presence, and has brought unwelcome guests. Even if Romeo Montague’s reputation as a worthless layabout and serial philanderer didn’t precede him, being friends with Mercutio, who is famously all wit and no honour, would be damning evidence against his character alone. He has strolled into a house where his name is akin to a curse, and now he has the gall to look at Juliet, and with the way she is looking back he is going to ruin everything, he’s going to have them all starve in the streets – 

He wakes up in his room with his hand burned and bandaged, and finds a knife under his pillow. The servants have avoided being alone with him for weeks, but now they flinch when he moves towards them. He will die fighting, and now he knows who it is he will fight.

When the messenger tells him that the friar wishes to see him, Tybalt’s first reaction is to try and recall whether losing your mind is a sin. He does not expect to meet the Prince, Mercutio, Benvolio, Romeo and Juliet already there – when did she even leave the house? Their so-called plan sounds absurd enough to be a dream, but his misery tells him he must be awake. He is sweating and shaking, desperately trying not to let on, and catches maybe one word in three through the haze in his mind, but it’s enough to get the important parts: Juliet will marry Romeo; they will fake their deaths and go to Mantua. Since the Prince decided that, there is nothing Tybalt can do to change it, even if he still had the power to rage and fight like he wants to. But he’ll be damned if he let some Montague brat take away Juliet. He is coming with them, and he is going to get his medication if he has to steal it, and then he will make sure Romeo treats her with honour and respect for the rest of his life. If he has to choose between Capulet and Juliet, there is no choice to be made. He counts the hours, but this time looking forward instead of back.

As he is finally lying on the stone-paved city square, waiting for the poison to grant him rest for the first time in many days, he is horrified to discover its effects are painfully familiar. Oh, it’s not exactly pain he feels, but he knows the cold panic and spreading numbness, knows hearing will be late to go even as his vision starts to swim, his mind a prisoner in this dead weight of a body. Romeo, kneeling over him, must have noticed his distress, and the whelp has the audacity to look concerned. When the world goes black there’s a hand on his forehead, but Tybalt doesn’t even manage to be angry anymore.

He wakes up in a hospital. He wakes up again. And again. And again. Sometimes he is strapped to his bed, sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes there are intervals of clarity, where he remembers this must be Mantua, and Juliet and Romeo must also be here, and he asks the doctors who come and go and make concerned faces. Their answers are lost immediately in the whirlwind of his mind, as his memory falls apart again and he loses himself to the sickness and the shaking and the fear, only to be relieved by unconsciousness. Eventually he is himself more often than not, enough to count the hours until Juliet visits. She comes by every day, and her worried face changes into a smile when the first thing he does without fail is ask after her health. She holds his hand and doesn’t chide him when he holds on too tight. She tells him to get well soon, so he can come live with Romeo and her – _come home_ are her precise words. She kisses him goodbye on the forehead, and whenever there have been a number of good days he almost believes he can make it. Then the headaches and cold sweats start up again, and he lies awake all night knowing that this is his punishment for deserting his family and that there is no home for him to return to anymore.

It takes many weeks until Tybalt is allowed to leave the hospital for good, time enough for Romeo to stop hovering around the hallway during Juliet’s visits and start coming into the room with her. He patiently answers Tybalt’s mistrustful questions and is not to be offended, not even when Tybalt asks to see their marriage certificate to prove that he really married Juliet. They seem happy together; more relaxed than giddy now. Tybalt still wishes he could leave with them to make sure.

When he finally goes with them, he just feels even more restless. There’s nothing to do, nobody needing him, and he feels like a guest in someone else’s house. They insist he should take it easy and rest, but resting is all he has been doing since he came here. With exact prescriptions on what sort of meds he is supposed to take when, he goes back to his old pattern of routine, but there’s just empty spaces where there used to be work. He takes charge of the servants of the house for now, but there’s still too much time left over. He reflects on Friar Laurence’s sermons on humility and penance. He looks at the sword he hasn’t carried in months, hasn’t missed even though it was like an additional limb back in Verona. He cuts his hair and tells Juliet and Romeo that he will be going undercover as a servant so he can leave the house and be useful. They let him, but draw the line at eating in the kitchen. At breakfast, lunch and dinner he watches them across the table. He does not know what he is looking for until he notices what’s missing: Juliet doesn’t flinch when Romeo touches her, her smile does not turn forced when he enters the room, and she asks for his opinion, not his permission. He has never seen a married couple behave like them, and he has to admit that Paris would not have made her look as happy.

He is surprised that Mercutio and Benvolio aren’t around. Weren’t they among the circle of conspirators? Romeo explains about Valentine and about Benvolio’s insistence on staying behind, shows Tybalt the messages they have since sent. It seems Mercutio is not without honour after all, or at least has shown himself capable of bearing responsibility, and even without knowing him it’s impossible to miss the quiet pride in Benvolio’s messages. With the feud officially over, the shipping embargo has been lifted, and the Prince even managed to negotiate better supplies. Apparently everyone got through the winter unharmed. Tybalt thinks of Nurse and Peter and Lady Capulet. He feels bad for abandoning them, but at the same time he never wants to go back.

Tybalt has never been a man of many words, but these days he sees a lot more than he used to, and he enjoys turning things over in his mind while his hands are busy with work, rather than striving for those blissful moments of complete emptiness that fencing practice used to grant him. His memory is almost back to what it used to be, but sometimes he still has bad days. He hides it from Juliet and Romeo as best he can, but usually they notice anyway. If he lets them, they sit down to the left and to the right of him, shoulder to his shoulder, thigh to thigh, and talk or sit in silence for a while. Sometimes Juliet holds his hand, and Romeo… does not, though his hand is right there for Tybalt to take if he wanted to. Tybalt has never been good at knowing what he wants, even worse at taking it. But sitting between them almost feels like nothing is expected of him and everything is offered. Almost like he can do no wrong. Whenever he comes back… back into the house from some errand, Juliet bestows a hug and a kiss to the cheek on him, and by now Romeo has gotten into the habit of doing the same, as a kinsman would. Tybalt has decided for himself, turning the question over and over and over, that a sinner is not one who has bad thoughts, only one who acts on them. He still knows his place, so he is safe. 

Besides, they will be busy with other things soon enough. The house is too large for three people and a few servants. Juliet will have children, like young brides do, and Tybalt will have someone to protect again – protect from what? These children will be born into peace. They will grow up into adults of a kind that is common in Mantua, but that Verona has not seen for a long, long time. They will probably never understand Tybalt, not really, to them he will be a relic of a world long gone. He will step back like he has learned to do, and let the future take its place on stage. Tybalt always had to act older than his age, but now for the first time he feels old.

Messages from Verona always cause great excitement, but this one even more so than usual: Mercutio and Benvolio are coming for a visit, hopefully the first of many. Tybalt wants to leave the house until they’re gone, afraid they’re going to pull him back into old habits, old mindsets, old hatred. But he also doesn’t want to leave Juliet alone in this kind of company. After all he isn’t the only one who has old habits to fall back into.

At first he doesn’t recognize the tall man next to Benvolio, who looks like he just came from his own funeral. The grin gives it away, but Tybalt also sees the smile Mercutio tries to hide when Romeo greets him with a hug of painful-looking intensity, and it’s not an expression the old Mercutio would ever have worn. When he walks over to meet Juliet, the weightless saunter is missing, as is the leer Tybalt was dreading. He walks up to Tybalt next, and takes his time eyeing him from cropped hair to dirty shoes and back, face unreadable. Tybalt in turn notices the shadows under his eyes, the way his ginger roots are starting to grow into the dyed brown; then he takes the proffered hand and the unspoken peace offer that goes with it.

With only two more people the house is suddenly no longer empty, and Tybalt feels ill at ease amidst the chatter and reminiscing. He finds no joy in throwing around words for the fun of it, nor does he have Benvolio’s gift of fitting himself into a group by carrying the tune others give. He tries keeping close to Juliet, but she mingles with Romeo’s friends as if she wasn’t meeting them for the second time only, and he has nothing to do than sit by and listen. Once he has to leave the room, because last night didn’t yield much sleep, and the noise is not helping with the headache. Mercutio finds him, and sits down against the wall next to him – slowly and carefully, like his legs might give at any moment. He doesn’t ask for permission, doesn’t ask what’s wrong, just starts talking. Mentions the nerve damage in his legs, how he’s glad no one else got that from the poison. How his ID now says _brown_ eyes, and Escalus wants him to make that accurate, in case someone gets suspicious. How he doesn’t think he will, since after all his blood type doesn’t match either. Tybalt has no business knowing any of this and no idea why Mercutio is talking about it, but it doesn’t seem like he’s expected to answer. 

Soon the monthly visits have become a custom, and Tybalt hates it. The house feels empty and restless without Mercutio and Benvolio, the guestroom is now their room even when it’s unoccupied. And when they’re there… Tybalt is sorely tempted to take his meals to the kitchen and eat with the servants, he would probably feel less out of place. Romeo and Mercutio usually sit plastered together without a speck of space between them, talking rapidly and laughing about who knows what. If they were strangers, Tybalt thinks, and he would see them for the first time, the word he would apply would not be _friends_. Yet Benvolio calls Mercutio _Valentine_ as if it was an endearment, not a name, and the messages Tybalt doesn’t get to see are always addressed to Juliet and Romeo both. Tybalt wishes they would leave his family alone, go back to Verona and never come back. He was all set to leave his old home behind, he knew his place and his future, and now-

Now there’s conversations he only catches the tail end of, dying down abruptly the moment he enters the room. There’s something being played and he wants no part in it, he wants - he wants. Yesterday, Romeo accompanied him into the city to run errands. In the middle of the market place, amidst the throng of people, he felt Romeo’s hand slide into his own, caught the edge of a smile on his turned face. It didn’t even occur to him to let go until they’d reached the street they had to turn into. This morning, he comes in for breakfast to find four pairs of eyes on him. Romeo is sitting between Juliet and Mercutio, with Benvolio on Mercutio’s other side. It only takes Tybalt a split second to notice that on the table, Romeo is holding both Juliet and Mercutio’s hand. Somehow he knows what Romeo is going to say even before he opens his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Shakey's Sonnet 10:
> 
> For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any,  
> Who for thyself art so unprovident.  
> Grant if thou wilt, thou art belov’d of many,  
> But that thou none lov’st is most evident;  
> For thou art so possessed with murd'rous hate  
> That ‘gainst thyself thou stick’st not to conspire,  
> Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate  
> Which to repair should be thy chief desire.  
> O change thy thought, that I may change my mind.  
> Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?  
> Be as thy presence is, gracious and kind,  
> Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove.  
>   Make thee another self for love of me,  
>   That beauty still may live in thine or thee.


End file.
